Her Father's Daughter
by bingblot
Summary: A mid-episode filler for "Watershed." Before Castle met Beckett at the swings, he called her father. Jim Beckett's POV of Caskett, at least in part.


Disclaimer: The world of "Castle" belongs to ABC and Andrew Marlowe and Co.

Author's Note: My first "Castle" fanfic. Come to think of it, I suppose the only surprising thing is that it's taken me so long to write one, after watching "Castle" obsessively from the first episode.

**Her Father's Daughter**

Jim Beckett was, somehow, both surprised and yet not at all surprised when he saw Rick Castle's name on his caller ID screen.

"Hello."

"Jim, this is Rick Castle."

"How are you, Rick? And how are Martha and Alexis?" he asked, the usual pleasantries rising to his lips automatically.

"They're fine," Rick said somewhat hurriedly. "Look, Jim, I—"

"I've talked to Katie," Jim interrupted quickly, wanting to cut off the conversation before it headed into awkwardness. "She told me about the interview in D.C." He wouldn't mention that she'd gotten the offer; that was something Rick would have to hear from Katie herself. When she made up her mind, that was. He paused, hesitated, wondered what he could say that wouldn't be a breach of faith, before he added more quietly, "She told me about your… disagreement."

"Ah. Right." That seemed to have thrown Rick off a little and silence hummed for a second over the line.

"Look, Rick," he finally had to say, a little surprised at how disappointed he was at the thought, "if you're calling to ask me to… intercede for you or some—"

"I'm not!" Rick burst out with enough sheer shock in his voice as to make his denial convincing. "I wouldn't ask you to do that." He paused and then added more calmly, "Kate would shoot me."

He sounded only half-humorous but Jim found himself chuckling a little anyway, partly out of his relief. "At least you know it." He liked Rick and would have been surprisingly disappointed if Rick had shown himself to know so little about Katie or have been the type to want to enlist Katie's _own father_ against her somehow.

"Jim, I…" Rick hesitated again and Jim frowned a little. Rick was sounding unlike himself. He couldn't claim to know Rick very well; he still knew Rick best from what Katie told him but from all he'd heard and from the times he'd met Rick, he felt he'd gotten a fairly good sense of Rick Castle's character. And he knew, of course, that Rick was much more than the insouciant charmer façade he showed the world but this uncertainty was still unlike him.

"What is it, Rick?" he asked mildly, encouragingly—in a tone not entirely unlike one he might use with Katie herself. He liked Rick personally—more importantly, he approved of Rick and trusted him, too, where Katie was concerned. Which said something. And whatever else, he knew Katie loved Rick. Katie's relationship with Rick had already become the longest, deepest one she'd ever had—which included her relationship with Will Sorenson years ago and she'd lived with Sorenson. And since then… Jim had never even officially been introduced to Dr. Josh Davidson by Katie, hadn't met him in person until—until after Captain Montgomery's funeral, he thought with the inward flinch he still reacted with at the memory of that day. It had been a telling omission, though he'd never called Katie on it, knowing her too well for that. But Rick—Rick was different. Had been from the first, really.

"I want to ask Kate to marry me," Rick blurted out in one breath.

Jim froze, the words seeming to echo in his mind. "You… you want to propose to Katie?" he repeated, his mind processing the words slowly as if Rick had spoken in a foreign language with which he was only vaguely familiar.

"Yes. I—I want to marry her," Rick finished quietly, soberly.

"I… see," was all Jim could say, lamely.

There was silence and then Jim's brain finally seemed to catch up to reality, and he realized something. "Wait, don't you think you should be asking her first?"

"Well, I would like your blessing before I do, Jim."

"That's very…" Jim hesitated. Old-fashioned was the word that came to mind but that didn't sound quite right. "… traditional of you," Jim commented, trying—and failing—to keep the surprise out of his voice. Rick didn't strike him as being very old-fashioned so this, calling to ask for his blessing before proposing to his daughter, suddenly seemed incredibly uncharacteristic.

Now Rick laughed, a small, rather awkward laugh. "Please, Jim, I have a daughter, remember, and I know how I would feel if anyone proposed to Alexis without telling me first."

The answer—the half-rueful candor of it—broke through to Jim, shaking him out of his surprise. "Fair point," he conceded, acknowledging Rick's rather surprising empathy—or not surprising, he supposed. Funny, that point of similarity between him and Rick had never really occurred to him until now. That he and Rick were both the fathers of one daughter whom they doted on. Both the single fathers of one daughter, he corrected himself with the stab of grief he always felt at any reminder of Johanna. The grief felt sharper, stronger, in that moment than it usually was these days.

_Oh, Johanna, he wants to marry our little Katie… _

Jim shook off the melancholy threatening to envelope him. "Rick, I… appreciate your calling." He paused—but even as he did so, he knew what he would say. What he had to say, really. He was just a little surprised at how hard it was to say the words. "You have my blessing, Rick," he said quietly, hoping that the huskiness of emotion wasn't quite as audible over the phone as it was to himself.

"Thank you, Jim." Rick sounded sober. "I do love Kate, very much," he added in something of a rush.

Jim smiled slightly. "I know you do, Rick, I've known it for years now." He would hardly have given his blessing otherwise, he thought but didn't say. It was too obvious to need saying, anyway.

There was another silence and then Jim suddenly remembered—entirely belatedly—what he'd just been talking to Katie about. He was really being amazingly dull today. Barely hours ago, he'd been talking to Katie while she worried about Rick hating her, wanting to break up with her! He might not have been able to believe that Rick would ever be able to hate Katie but to have gone from the fight they'd had—at least based on Katie's telling of it—to wanting to propose seemed like an amazing leap in less than 24 hours. Jim frowned, straightening. "Rick, just tell me one thing," he began with more force.

He almost sensed Rick coming to attention at the tone of his voice. "Of course, Jim," Rick answered, courteously enough but Jim heard the note of sudden caution in his voice.

"This—you're not proposing to Katie now in some attempt to throw some weight to your side of the equation and force her decision on this D.C. job thing, are you?" He tried again. "If—if she gets the offer from D.C.," he said, mindful of Katie's trust in him, "you aren't going to propose to her in a way to up the ante of her decision, are you?"

Rick was silent for a couple seconds and Jim winced a little. Okay, so he probably could have been—should have been—a little more tactful in his questions, as disjointed as they had been.

"No," Rick finally answered slowly and with more uncertainty than Jim would have liked to have heard. He would have preferred if Rick had denied it with the same force as he'd denied Jim's earlier question at the start of this call about asking him to intercede with Katie.

Jim heard Rick sigh at the other end of the line. "I—if you're asking if I would have decided to propose to Kate now if she hadn't had this interview in D.C., then, well, I have to say the answer is, no. If you're asking if this D.C. thing is the only reason I want to propose to her, no, it's not. This interview—or I suppose, our fight about the interview—only served as a catalyst. I—I've known for months—no, years now," Rick corrected himself and Jim found himself relaxing, "that I want to spend the rest of my life with Kate."

Rick paused, clearly mulling over what else he wanted to say, and finally continued, "I just… I've been… waiting, I guess. At first, it was because I couldn't really believe that Kate and I were really together after all this time and then it was because I didn't want to rock the boat too much. And lately… well, I've been waiting for her."

"Waiting for her to…"

"Waiting for her to… I don't know… tell me she was ready to take the next step, I guess."

Jim couldn't help but laugh a little, briefly, at Rick's tone making him sound, for a fleeting moment, like a little kid wondering why he couldn't make the waves stop moving by telling it to.

"I just… whatever Kate decides to do," Rick began again with more certainty, "whether she gets the offer in D.C. or not—I want her to know that, well, I'm in."

"Okay, Rick," Jim stepped in, stemming whatever else Rick might have said. He was a little amazed that Rick had been so voluble about it but he supposed part of it was the writer in Rick—Rick was used to using words to express himself—and part of it was probably a wish to explain himself, justify himself, to Jim after Jim's somewhat less-than-friendly question. Whatever the reason, Jim was reassured now. He supposed he shouldn't have been quite so nervous about Rick's motives—but then, this was Katie, his Katie, they were talking about. No father worth his salt would have—could have—simply given his blessing without _some_ misgivings.

But he did trust Rick where Katie was concerned. Rick… who had refused to leave Katie alone when she had stepped on a bomb just weeks ago, he remembered with the inward shudder which he'd felt when Katie had told him about it. He had never gotten used to the danger Katie was in—but she had Rick now. And while that didn't take away his fear, it was, at least, somewhat reassuring.

Jim opened his mouth to ask Rick to call him and let him know Katie's answer, whether yes or no or maybe, but then he closed it. He was being silly. Whatever Katie answered, she would call him and tell him. Katie might be a private person but he knew her, trusted her, and she would call him. He didn't need to ask Rick.

On the other hand… In a sudden spurt of man-to-man empathy, Jim found himself blurting out, "Rick?"

"Yes, Jim?"

"Good luck."

Rick laughed briefly, the laugh sounding a little rough around the edges. "Thanks." He paused and then added, more soberly, "And thank you for, well, saying yes."

"Thank you for calling."

"I have a daughter too," Rick demurred. "I'll let you go now. I need to talk to Kate."

"Bye, Rick."

"Bye, Jim."

Jim clicked to end the call and then sat back in his chair, his gaze focusing, absently, first at a spot on his desk and then drawn, automatically, to the framed picture on it—one of himself, Johanna, and Katie taken at Katie's graduation from high school. Katie, looking almost heartbreakingly young, beamed out at him from the picture, her wide, bright smile still thrown in the shade compared to the love and pride and joy radiating from Johanna's face.

_Oh, Johanna, Rick wants to marry her. He wants to marry our little girl… _

He supposed he was being irrational, to say nothing of maudlin, but he could hear Johanna's well-remembered voice in his head in response. _Don't sound like that, Jim. You like Rick, you know you do. And Rick loves Katie. _

_I know, I know. But that doesn't mean I need to be happy about losing our little girl, does it? _

Again, the sound of Johanna's soft laugh was almost as real to him as if she were in the room, so real that even now, after so many years, he still felt fleeting moments of surprise that Johanna wasn't actually there. _You're not fooling me, Jim. You know our Katie loves Rick; you're already assuming Katie will say yes. _

That made him blink and then smile a little, even as he felt sudden, inexplicable tears pricking his eyes. Funny, that. In spite of the complications, in spite of what he knew Katie's very real concerns over her and Rick's relationship had been—yes, in spite of everything, he was somehow sure that Katie would say yes.

She would be surprised, stunned even, no doubt about that, and her first instinct would probably be caution, hesitation. But Jim knew his daughter. He knew Katie's courage and her strength and her heart. She was her mother's daughter in that respect—and other respects. And he knew Katie loved Rick as she'd never loved anyone before. She hadn't even had to tell him—for that matter, she never really had, in so many words. But he knew his daughter. Even without the words, he knew his daughter. And with Katie, her courage and her heart would always win out over any fears she might have.

Yes, he knew his Katie. And he knew she would say yes.

_~The End~_

A/N 2: If you'd be so inclined, please review! I'd love to know what people think about my first foray into "Castle" fanfiction. And thanks, in advance, for reading and reviewing!


End file.
